The Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, Winter 1926-27 [Part II]

In the previous post, we left the BFAC exhibition looking at a leaf hanging on the wall just inside the door to the Gallery. In the first exhibition-case in the Gallery was the set of six full-page miniatures illuminated by William de Brailes, lent by Chester Beatty, and now at the Fitzwilliam Museum (MS 330; all six are online here), including the one shown above, which is no. 2 of those listed below:

The Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, Winter 1926-27 [Part I]

Most readers of this blog will be aware of the landmark 1908 exhibition of illuminated manuscripts held by the Burlington Fine Arts Club (BFAC) in 1908. In a previous post, I discussed two lesser-known exhibitions of illuminated manuscripts held by the BFAC, in 1874 and 1886.

Even less well known that either of these two exhibitions, however, each of which is commemorated by a printed catalogue, is an exhibition held during the winter of 1926 to 1927, for which there is no published catalogue.

There is, however, a typescript draft catalogue which only survives in a single copy, as far as I am aware. It was in the BFAC archive transferred to the library of the V&A Museum when the BFAC was wound-up in 1951.

"The Property of a Gentleman": Gustav Nebehay (1881–1935)

Some months ago, Consuelo Dutschke very generously gave me some old auction and dealer catalogues, including Sotheby's, 14-16 June, 1926:

Lots 116–150 were sold as "An Important Collection of Fine Illuminations, The Property of a Gentleman". I recognise some of them from the plates in the catalogue.

A Dismembered Prayerbook from the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson

Christie's recently held its first "Online Only" auction of medieval manuscript leaves and cuttings. I visited them while they were cataloguing for the sale, and was able to tell them that this fine miniature is by the Master of Jacques de Luxembourg:

Christie's [Source]

and that two other leaves from the same manuscript are in the Jean Miles Blackburn Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art:

"BRYANSTOLE": Henry Yates Thompson's Price-Code

I was recently made aware of a digitized manuscript at Princeton from the collection of Henry Yates Thompson, which has his characteristic "Ex Musæo" label inscribed with his manuscript number, price in code, source and date of acquisition:

[Source]

As I have been discussing price-codes in recent posts, I thought it might be worth correcting an error that has appeared in print at least four times.[1]

The Post-Medieval Provenance of the Taymouth Hours (BL, Yates Thompson MS. 13)

I have recently read and reviewed Kathryn A. Smith, The Taymouth Hours: Stories and the Construction of Self in Late Medieval England (The British Library: London, 2012).

I have often argued that the post-medieval and even modern provenance of medieval manuscripts can provide valuable clues to their medieval origins and owners, and the Taymouth Hours may be a case in point. I will consider the manuscript's provenance in two parts: here considering its post-medieval homes, working backwards from the present, and then its origin patron in a subsequent post.

The manuscript was bequeathed to the British Museum by the widow of Henry Yates Thompson in 1941. It had escaped being sold in the three Yates Thompson auctions of 1919-1921 because Yates Thompson had given it to her a few years earlier: in 1917 he inscribed its flyleaf as follows:

"This volume, one of the
choicest of my English MS.S.
I gave to my dear wife on her
birthday Jan[uar]y 10th 1917 to
mitigate her grief at the
news that I intended to sell
my collection of 100 illumi-
nated MSS.
                 [signed:] HYT."

The first flyleaf has Yates Thompson's bookplate annotated, as usual, with the acquisition details:

"57": the number of the MS in Thompson's collection,

"nee.e.e": the price he paid, using his price-code "bryanstole", i.e. "£500 0s. 0d."

"Earl of Ashburnham May 1897": the source and date of acquisition.